Nashville’s dynamic growth has altered the soul, essence and flavor of its neighborhoods.

Long held as the foundation of an area’s success, Nashville neighborhoods are facing changing demographics, displacement of economically struggling people, new residents flocking to the urban core and a booming tourism economy creeping into residential areas, disconnecting the city from its past.

The number of active neighborhoods has fallen from a high of 600 during Bill Purcell’s mayoral administration (1999-2007) to 89, per the Neighborhoods Resource Center’s 2017 Neighborhoods Census.

The reasons vary.

In some cases, neighborhoods rally around a crisis, but participation falls after the situation becomes resolved for better or for worse.

Some neighborhoods rely on the same leaders perennially, and that makes them ripe for burnout.

“There is no way we can make our city resilient unless we make our neighborhoods resilient.”

Jim Hawk, executive director of the Neighborhoods Resource Center

Meanwhile, Nashville faces the reality that more than 50 percent of its residents are not from Davidson County, and as the city continues to grow by 100 people a day, the changes will be even more marked in the years to come.

That has become especially evident as higher-income and generally white residents have moved into historically African-American and moderate- or lower-income neighborhoods in the urban core. That has caused friction that has divided some neighborhoods along racial, socio-economic and political lines.

“There is no way we can make our city resilient unless we make our neighborhoods resilient,” said Jim Hawk, executive director of the Neighborhoods Resource Center, which provides training and support for neighborhood organizations and leaders.

Ruby D. Baker is the president of the the Bourdeaux Hills Neighborhood association Monday, July 24, 2017, in Nashville, Tenn. Baker is working to help elderly residents in her neighborhood age in place.
(Photo: George Walker IV / The Tennessean)

The Keep Southeast Nashville Healthy group meets at the home of Heather Hixson Tuesday, July 18, 2017, in Nashville, Tenn. The group is working to prevent a gas compression station being built by the Columbia Pipeline Group in the Cane Ridge area.(Photo: George Walker IV / Tennessean)

The Keep Southeast Nashville Healthy group — including Geraldine Marcus, Jim Torarski, Richard Marcus, Jennifer Friedman, Heather Hixson, Jason McGovern and Chris Tuley — is working to prevent a gas compression station being built by the Columbia Pipeline Group in the Cane Ridge area.(Photo: George Walker IV / The Tennessean)

The Keep Southeast Nashville Healthy group meets at the home of Heather Hixson Tuesday, July 18, 2017, in Nashville, Tenn. The group is working to prevent a gas compression station being built by the Columbia Pipeline Group in the Cane Ridge area.
(Photo: George Walker IV / Tennessean)

The Keep Southeast Nashville Healthy group meets at the home of Heather Hixson on July 18, 2017, in Nashville. The group is working to prevent a gas compression station being built by the Columbia Pipeline Group in the Cane Ridge area.(Photo: George Walker IV / The Tennessean)

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The current Metro Council counts among its membership former neighborhood leaders. Mayor Megan Barry served as a leader in the Belmont-Hillsboro Neighborhood Association before entering public service as an at-large Metro Council member.

One of her priorities has been expanding the reach and purview of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhoods and Community Engagement.

However, neighborhoods will not thrive with a top-down approach. Neighbors need to get to know one another, organize at a grass-roots level and be willing to work through sometimes difficult and contentious issues together.

Then they need to make the effort to grow their membership and groom their future leaders so they can stay together.

Continue reading to learn about the evolution of Nashville’s neighborhood focus and its threats, interwoven with vignettes about how neighbors in Bordeaux Hills, Cleveland Park, Oak Hill and Cane Ridge have approached threats to their quality of life.

Ruby Baker of Bordeaux Hills: 'We're not going to be pushed out'

Ruby D. Baker bought her house in the Bordeaux Hills neighborhood in North Nashville 17 years ago.

Baker, 57, has seen the ebbs and flows of neighborhood change and challenges over the years.

Crime. The damage of the 2010 Nashville flood. The onset of new development and displacement of residents.

Baker was there when homeowners were too afraid to go to their mailboxes because of gangs and drugs.

However, Baker does not want to leave. She and other neighbors want to age in place.

“We decided we’re going to stay,” she said. “We’re not going to be pushed out.”

Property values have risen in the neighborhood, and Baker worked hard to ensure that elderly neighbors who were eligible knew about tax freeze and abatement programs.

“We knew it was coming,” she said. “We were just trying to brace for it. Gentrification was not something we were worried about, especially if you knew what you could to secure your home.”

Why ex-Mayor Bill Purcell made neighborhoods a priority

During his 1999 campaign for Nashville mayor, Bill Purcell famously aired a commercial with his desk sitting on his front yard to show that he would be the champion for the city’s neighborhoods.

He was not the first mayor, city official or activist to care for or advocate for neighborhoods — pioneers like the late Councilwoman Betty Nixon and Gene TeSelle had made it an issue decades before.

However, Purcell made his first act in office the creation of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhoods.

Former Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell, left, laughs with Mayor Karl Dean as they help judge the chicken contest during the annual Hot Chicken Festival on July 4, 2012, in East Nashville.(Photo: File / The Tennessean)

“I was absolutely convinced and remain convinced that the neighborhoods are the essential building blocks of a successful city,” he said during a recent conversation at his office in the Regions Bank Building downtown.

Purcell had succeeded former mayor and eventual Gov. Phil Bredesen, who became known for the development of big downtown projects like Bridgestone Arena for the Nashville Predators and bringing the Houston Oilers, which eventually became the Tennessee Titans, to Nashville.

Purcell hired Brenda Wynn, now Davidson County clerk, as his first neighborhoods office director.

“One of the things I thought was important was to educate people about community engagement,” Wynn said.

“The only real way to get true change is from the inside out. We can’t impose change on neighborhoods. Neighborhoods evolve.”

Efforts included the Mayor’s Night Out, Night Out Against Crime and working toward improving constituent services.

Purcell said 600 active neighborhood associations were identified during his administration.

“Neighborhoods are still a critical piece of what makes Nashville special. It makes us attractive as a city.”

Lonnell Matthews, director of the Nashville Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods and Community Engagement

“When we were strongest was when Bill Purcell became mayor,” said Hawk, of the Neighborhoods Resource Center.

A report authored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in consultation with Wynn documented numerous community groups dedicated to neighborhood issues, such as the Building Stronger Neighborhood Council, Nashville Neighborhood Alliance, Neighborhoods Resource Center and Tying Nashville Together.

While Purcell’s successor Mayor Karl Dean (2007-2015) kept the neighborhood’s office, his focus shifted toward downtown redevelopment, with projects like the Music City Center, and responding to crises like the Great Recession and the 2010 Nashville flood. Barry, elected in 2015, appointed former district Metro Councilman Lonnell Matthews as director of the renamed Mayor’s Office of Neighborhoods and Community Engagement.

“Neighborhoods are still a critical piece of what makes Nashville special,” Matthews said. “It makes us attractive as a city.”

Lonnell Matthews Jr. of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhoods and Community Engagement, right, kicks off a series at The Shop Barber Studio in South Nashville as Orlando Reid cuts the hair of Dominic Adomako.(Photo: Joey Garrison / The Tennessean)

Among his office’s most important initiatives will be the launch in August of Hub Nashville, a dedicated constituent service call center, billed as a reboot of 3-1-1.

It will connect residents quickly with key information on how to access Metro services, like filling potholes and getting a permit, for example. Navigating Metro’s 58 departments can be confusing, Matthews explained.

“It will give people a voice in government,” he said.

Barry has made investments in sidewalks, parks and community services a priority, but she also has her eyes on big-picture projects like the potential construction of a multimillion-dollar Major League Soccer stadium and the funding of a comprehensive multibillion-dollar transit system.

Whether she can be both the neighborhoods mayor and the big-project mayor remains to be seen.

Stacy Widelitz of Oak Hill: 'We want to preserve the way of life that we have.'

Four years ago encroaching commercial development galvanized residents of Oak Hill, one of Metropolitan Nashville Davidson County government’s six satellite cities.

The home to the Tennessee governor’s mansion and Radnor Lake State Park had incorporated in the 1950s precisely to preserve its residential character.

“I was very much against any type of commercial development in Oak Hill,” said Stacy Widelitz, 61. “We want to preserve the way of life that we have.

Oak Hill Vice Mayor Stacy Widelitz(Photo: Submitted)

“We are very adamant about maintaining our neighborhood as a green space,” he added. “We don’t want to see in Oak Hill what’s happened in Green Hills where one home is torn down and two or three replace it.”

Widelitz, an award-winning composer and songwriter, moved to Nashville 19 years ago from Los Angeles.

Oak Hill residents united to oppose the change and it drew neighborhoods together and toward deeper grass-roots engagement, he said.

“A collaborative, creative atmosphere – it’s one of the reasons I moved here. I still see that as an essential element of what makes Nashville special.”

Oak Hill Vice Mayor Stacy Widelitz

His activism eventually led him to politics and in 2016 he was elected to Oak Hill’s Board of Commissioners and now serves as vice mayor.

Metro has clumsily enforced rules, which are easily skirted by bad actors; thousands of listings are advertised without the proper permit.

Listing companies like Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway have resisted bans and overly strict regulations, and Airbnb’s lobbyists nearly persuaded the Tennessee General Assembly to prevent municipalities from enacting bans.

That legislation has been deferred until 2018.

Meanwhile, a Metro Council ordinance to ban and phase out the investor-owned units has been delayed until the fall while a committee appointed by Vice Mayor David Briley develops recommendations in consultation with the companies.

Purcell sees a need for strong regulations on short-term rentals in residential areas.

“Instead of a residential neighborhood, it’s an entertainment zone where people are coming and going every 24 hours without any interest in the neighborhood’s long-term future,” he said.

Matthews, of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhoods and Community Engagement, expressed similar sentiments.

“I feel like neighborhoods should be for people who live there first and that’s primary,” he said.

Sam McCullough of Cleveland Park: 'Nashville has lost Nashville'

Sam McCullough’s great-grandparents came to East Nashville in the 1800s along with many other African-Americans who left plantations to be near the Capitol after the Civil War and the end of slavery.

The lifelong resident said he has seen dramatic transformations over his lifetime, but never so quickly as in recent years.

Cleveland Park resident Sam McCullough stands in front of First Baptist Church East Nashville at 601 Main St. His great-grandparents joined the church in 1898 under the founder, the Rev. R.B. Vandervall.(Photo: Submitted)

“It’s changing so fast, so rapidly, it’s surprised me,” remarked McCullough, 60, the president and chair emeritus of the Cleveland Park Neighborhood Association, who said he intends to remain in his neighborhood for the rest of his life.

Property values have doubled or tripled over the last four years.

A home valued for $85,000 in 2013 in the area is now worth over $200,000, according to the Davidson County Property Assessor’s site. Zillow has homes listed for between $200,000 and $550,000 in the neighborhood.

Higher-income white residents have moved into the area just west of Ellington Parkway and the recently and now properly dedicated Frederick Douglass Park, named after the famed abolitionist, author and activist.

Areas in or near the core have experienced displacement by urban renewal programs of the mid-20th century that destroyed or cut through vibrant neighborhoods due to the construction of roads and highways.

“If urban renewal didn’t get you in the '60s, the interstate got you. If the interstate didn’t get you, Ellington Parkway got you. Now, it’s gentrification, housing costs and taxes that will get you,” McCullough said.

Other threats he sees are short-term rental properties — he has four on his block — which he believes are threatening the supply of housing for residents as well as Nashville’s growing tourism boom.

“Nashville has lost Nashville,” he said. “All this madness of the party town — we have lost our city. I don’t think the mayor has a grip on what’s happening. We’ve lost our real identity.

“If we don’t get a grip on it, we’ll become Las Vegas,” he said.

It's tough work to bring neighbors together, even tougher to keep them united

Metro Nashville Davidson County measures 533 square miles, the second-largest land mass in the United States, according to the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp.
The county’s neighborhoods span all different types of settings, from dense and urban to suburban to rural.

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Neighborhood group fights gas pipeline in their community.
George Walker IV/The Tennessean

Problems vary by area and neighborhood, but typically some kind of external threat will bring residents together, like public safety, the quality of schools, a nuisance or land-use issues.

“Neighborhoods are not simple to organize without a threat,” Purcell said. “And once organized, they don’t continue on their own. They require a lot of care and feeding.”

Yet, numerous threats, small and large, stand in the way of neighborhoods’ success, such as poor participation, state legislation that nullifies local ordinances, or even poorly run meetings.

“Neighborhoods are not simple to organize without a threat.”

Former Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell

“You have a bad meeting and people aren’t going to come back,” said John Stern, the longtime president of the Nashville Neighborhood Alliance, a grass-roots organization representing neighborhood groups and associations.

Stern said he remembered a time when Metro Council members were anti-neighborhood, but that has changed over the years.

“This is the best group of council that I think we’ve ever had,” he said. “If you want to get elected as one of 35 district council members, you’re going to have to walk the neighborhood.”

People’s ideas of what defines a neighborhood vary, said Hawk of the Neighborhoods Resource Center.

“We have folks who have a very different understanding of what a neighborhood is and what a house is,” Hawk said. “Some people are trying to create a home where they can live at for many years. Others are looking at their homes and neighborhoods as an investment.”

What’s needed, he said, are caretakers, but “a lot of neighborhoods don’t have caretakers.”

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Since January journalists David Plazas and George Walker IV have examined how pro-growth policies have prepared Nashville for prosperity, but it has been paired with growing inequality in their "Costs of Growth and Change in Nashville" series.
Wochit

Sometimes that is due to burnout among neighborhood leaders, an inability to stay united after a threat is abated or having to contend with difficult people.

“Not everybody has a soft and cuddly neighbor,” Hawk said.

One way for residents to get involved is by attending the NRC’s annual Nashville Neighborhoods Celebration, a free public event to celebrate neighbors.

The next one is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30, at Elizabeth Park, 1701 Arthur Ave. in North Nashville.

The NRC also is planning its first Neighborhood Leadership Conference in March.

Chris Tuley of Cane Ridge: 'I don’t want my kids to grow up with this a mile away'

Chris Tuley, 32, moved his family to Cane Ridge in 2015.

The affordable, middle-class area of Antioch in Southeast Nashville seemed to be a perfect, safe place to raise a family, which includes two young boys, ages 2½ and 1½.

Recent investments and excitement over Antioch have made it an even more attractive area, especially since Ikea’s May announcement that it would be opening a store there in upcoming years.

However, Tuley said his family, neighbors and the area’s future prosperity face a real threat.

The Keep Southeast Nashville Healthy group — including Geraldine Marcus, Jim Torarski, Richard Marcus, Jennifer Friedman, Heather Hixson, Jason McGovern and Chris Tuley — is working to prevent a gas compression station being built by the Columbia Pipeline Group in the Cane Ridge area.(Photo: George Walker IV / The Tennessean)

Columbia Pipeline Group intends to build a gas compressor on 90 acres at the corner of Barnes Road and Old Hickory Boulevard.

“We’re one mile from where the proposed compressor station is going to be,” Tuley said. “I don’t want my kids to grow up with this a mile away.”

Tuley learned about the issue on social media and then began to organize residents. Today, he’s president of Keep Southeast Nashville Healthy.

“It’s about local control more than anything. It’s about being able to decide what goes into a neighborhood.”

Chris Tuley, president of Keep Southeast Nashville Healthy

What started as 30 residents grew into 200, and soon they were finding common ground with neighbors in Joelton in northwest Nashville, who are trying to stop a separate gas compression station being built there by Tennessee Pipeline Co.

Their efforts received legislative support from the Metro Council and advocacy from Barry. They see the compressors as a threat to residents’ health, their quality of life and the environment.